Shadows
A Shadow is the highest ranking demon in existence (lower than archdemons obviously) They serve as the main commanders and most poweful minions/weapons of their queen, The Forgotten. Killing shadows directly weakens her, not enough to kill her, but enough for a capture. This is also likely the reason she brings them out very rarely, or to protect a key point. Another, elite shadow is fought at Gemcraft Labyrinth. It is basically the same, but it's stats are very nasty, about 4 times as powerful as the shadows in CS2, and having an OH-KO final trick when its health goes down to 50'000. It basically becomes huge and flies right into your orb to kill you. And no, it can't be banished. They attack by summoing powerful monsters (who have a large banishment cost, are very, fast, but not that durable) attack with shadow balls right into your Orb, burning outrageous amounts of mana, but can be taken down with a single tower hit. Each time they summon shadow balls the amount is higher than the previous one, so they will eventualy kill you if you don't shoot them down first. After the first 5 or 6 hextiles, they seem to appear randomly during battles in about every third or second battle, but some shadows appears as bosses on certain fields (this is not random). They drop a significant amount of Shadow Cores upon death and they get stronger every time you kill one. Properties A Shadow is a rather strong opponent and can be very destructive if it appears in early waves (and/or in large numbers depending on how lucky you are with the Chasing Shadows Battle Trait). They have around 10000 Hp at first and around 1200 armor, both of which increase over time. These values change each time you encounter one, though they are primarily dependent on how many waves you have beaten before they appear and the difficulty of the field, determining the level of the shadow, which can be seen upon targeting it. A shadow on Field E2 after 32 waves will be a lower level than a shadow on Field W4 after 28 waves, all enraged, with the Beacon Storm trait set to 7 (v1.0). Their high armor makes them practically immune to direct damage from low grade gems and it increases during battle. The rate of new armor is determined by level and is measured in added armor levels per minute. Some of their abilities vary between shadows and are as follows: *The Shadows move around the battlefield randomly with a rather high (sometimes low) speed and they can move slowly even when the game is paused ("move through frozen time," not when the pause MENU is accessed). This makes them hard to shoot them with towers, because they can basically move away by the time a gem resockets - of course you can always use a Gem Enhancement spell to resocket it instantly. **Their armor and health slowly recovers/adds while the game is paused as well. *They may shoot projectiles towards your Orb of Presence and Towers, you must shoot them down as they cost mana if they reach it, though it only requires one shot per projectile. These projectiles are given utmost priority by the towers and will be shot at even if a target is manually selected. *They will heal a large amount of health if they enter an invincible circular form. *They can''' summon spawnlings''' into the field if they stop over a path; they do not always summon them if they stop over a path. *They are also immune to damage while in their dissasembled form, though all strike spells will still affect them in this form. The Freeze Strike Spell will slow Shadows down to the speed they move at as when the game is paused. Pausing the game after freezing a shadow will make it almost completely stop. *They destroy nearby walls '''when they die, just like Spires.' *Sometimes they will '''attack your Orb directly' and reduce your spells charge level or burn a portion of your mana. ** The following needs varification, but it is possible that they don't do this until after you beat the Wizard Tower of Hextile T. *At higher levels, they will begin to act as a beacon, providing monsters with shields, healing, and additional speed. *Finally, Shadows can act as quick fire''' Possession Obelisks''', randomly choosing one or several monsters on the field to become possessed with three random buffs and increased health, armor, and banishment cost (among other possible buffs such as beacon summoning, summoning beacons upon death, healing nearby monsters upon death, higher speed, etc.). Unfortunately, they still grant the same mana and xp reward as before possession. Battle If a Shadow appears early, you should consider restarting the battle, because they will make gaining enough mana to set up proper defenses much harder, especially on new fields or unfamiliar battle settings. On the other hand they provide a challenging, but fun boss battle, as well as a lot of shadow cores The best way to kill a shadow is to shoot it with a Bolt enchanted Gem. But you might want to defeat some waves before attempting to kill it to make a stronger gem.You can also try tearing down its armor(a low grade purple gem with beam is very effective on shadows below level 100). While you are gathering the required mana to upgrade your gems you must shield your Orb from projectiles. It can be done with many low grade gems, or by a single gem with beam (as long as that gem has nothing else to shoot at, the beam spell will last a long time). Don't take too much time to kill it however, as its armor will grow very large and its projectiles and swarmlings will come in greater amounts. But, if it is more convenient to focus on the last waves of monsters on a field rather than the Shadow(s), high grade or supergemmed poison gems (and many of them) can quickly wittle down a shadow's health. The trick is to not really on one single poison gem, as the shadow moves too much for the player to rely on lucky placement or repositioning. Trivia *The first instance of a shadow is in Field V4, which resembles Field G13 in Gemcraft Labyrinth. Category:Gemcraft Chapter 2 (Chasing Shadows)